THREE BRIDGE BREWING CO.
Three Bridge Brewing Co. is a small craft brewery located in Menominee, Michigan. I created the Three Bridge logo back in 2014, and worked with the owners as the brands identity evolved over the years.
LOGO DESIGN
The Roman numerals in the Three Bridge logo represent the literal three bridges that cross the Menominee river separating Menominee, Michigan from Marinette, Wisconsin. The blue band, accordingly, represents the river, and acts as the main brand-color for the brewery. The color can, however, be switched out on packaging to denote a specific style of beer, event, or cause.
APPLICATION
The logo was used on a variety of applications throughout the years including t-shirts, hoodies, hats, signage, ceramic mugs, stickers, growlers, kegs and glassware.
PACKAGING
At one point Three Bridges considered expanding beyond the brewery and into local distribution channels. The cans for their first commercially available beer, King Copper, would have been a surprising matte black with metallic gold details.
King Copper was marketed as a beer celebrating the working class, and a rich history of copper mining in the area, with a crown made of hand tools, and pairing notes that poke fun at typical ‘beer snob’ culture.
EXPANDING THE BRAND
As the years went by, and Three Bridges experimented with more and more recipes, the owners challenged me with coming up with crests or sigils to represent the personalities of each beer. They would all have a signature color, and would be printed on wooden shields or banners that would hang around the perimeter of the brewery to indicate what was on tap at any given time.
As this was more of an illustration-focused assignment you can find the full gallery of these designs in my Illustration Projects section.
BACKGROUND NOISE
I spent quite a lot of time listening to the ALREADY GONE podcast while concepting the King Copper packaging logo. Author and Host, Nina Innstead, delivers true accounts of the missing, murdered, mysterious and lost with a focus on Michigan and the Great Lakes region. While the stories are often sad or frustrating, I love learning about the area I call home, and Nina’s research into her subjects is wonderfully thorough and compassionate.